Posted:15th Sep 2005My home made staff did me proud last night and the few who used it said it was real good for a first effort. I want it a tiny bit heavier though but i'm unsure how i can do this. The middle has dowelling the entire length, it does'nt have wicks on the end as i'm not going near fire for a while yet, instead it just has a few inches of pipe insulation wrapped around the ends more for protection than anything else.

What do you do to add weight? I'm not too keen on getting a thicker bar as my 3/4 inch pipe does me nicely. The only other pipe in the shop was iron, but that looked and felt a lot more bendable than what i'm using. Then again, i guess theres more chance of strain injuries with a heavy one.

Posted:15th Sep 2005why don;t you add wicks, there's no need to light them if the time isn't right.the benefit will be that you will be perfectly conditioned to the wieghting when the time comes to spark up. just be careful about fraying - practice with the wicks covered or over grass.

Posted:15th Sep 2005my practice staffs are just made out of broomsticks of varying lengths and thicknesses, gives me a good variation of weight/length etc..... means also I can use a lighter staff for practising a new move or a heavier staff for building up stamina

Posted:13th Oct 2005regarding the fuel, paraffin weighs about .817g/ml so if your wicks hold a litre of fuel then this could be almost a kg of extra weight. More likely to hold about half a litre or less total though so this would be about 200g extra weight on each end - enough to make a noticable difference anyways.I find that the drag caused by the flames is the most significable factor when lit tho

PS: Calv, it's not actually all that easy to hospitalise youself spinning firestaff, so long as you have 28g or so of common sense, so get yourmates together and give it a go Just wear a hat - hair burns much much better than skin

'Bother!' Said Pooh, pawing at the chains wrapped around him, 'Piglet, could you pass me the fire blanket?'

My current 1.5m staff could use a bit more weight for contact. I spent a lot of time with it practicing while covering the wicks with thick socks adding weight and a LOT of drag. Upon removing the socks from my staff during a practice session, it took off and nearly ended up next door.

Posted:6th Sep 2007My new practice double is allmost 800g each, nearly as fueled kevlar onesBig contact staff also 800g for now.And new big single somewhere about 3kg when fueled (uses about 2.5-3litres of kero )I think, you should just train not to depend on staff weight too much. Anyway, when burned, it loses at leas 1/3 of it's weight when fuel goes out.

you could sink some heavy blts into the ends if you have a wooden core and you don't think it will interfere with the attachment of the kevlar... other than that theres not much, maybe re-wick it with bigger wicks

A couple of balls short of a full cascade... or maybe a few cards short of a deck... we'll see how this all fans out.

Posted:21st Nov 2008I was given a suggestion the other day for me making a practice staff and (tries to think who told her) but try wrapping cloth as if it wwere wicks and tape it up this would give nerly the same weight as wicks - maybe see thread practice staff?

Hope this hellps good luck

*In the car while Pink is playing on the radio*Tristan aged 4 : "Mum is this Pink?"Flame:"Yes mate this is Pink?"Tristan:"Are you going to Pink?"Flame:"Yes i am"Tristan:"Cool well I'm going to BLUE"

Posted:15th Dec 2008when i got a practise contact staff it came with large rubber weights on each end, sounds complex but its made by taping one end of a strip down then winding it round like a wick before taping off again. combined with the wooden stick it makes for quite a nice weight, great for me anyways... but yeah you could do a similar thing, maybe if rubber strips are hard tog et hold of you could sue something else, old sock/clothing in strips, maybe tin foil? haha you'd probably need a fair bit of it though.... dunno just an idea, alternatively see below...

of course if its already got wicks then that's more difficult, i suggest (if its got wood dowels in the end which it should) getting a self tapping screw and some big heavy washers, then drilling a pilot hole and screwing that in the ends for some nice extra weight that doesn't mess us the wicks nor change them at all =)

Posted:23rd Jun 2010Just made a contact staff for playing around with at home. Dowel from B&Q, sprayed metallic blue with racket grip tape in the middle, and 2 thick rolls of duct tape at each end to make the weighed 'wick' bit. Works well shame about the idiot spinning it though

Posted:24th Aug 2010I would agree with Dag and say head to your local bike shop and ask for some old inner tubes.. Just cut out the little air intake and then add a strip of duck tape to hold the frist part of the inner tube down, wraper the inner tube around the end of teh staff tightly and then add another layer of duck tape on the outside to hold it all together...

There is a tutorial video of this on youtube by the guys from flowtoys, can't pull it up at the moment as I am at work, but it's out there somewhere

If i had a world of my own, everything would be nonsense. Nothing would be what it is, because everything would be what it isnt. And contrary wise, what is, it wouldnt be. And what it wouldnt be, it would. You see?